MATTA Membership with ECTAA to Boost Tourist Arrivals from Europe to Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 MAY 2018 – The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) welcomes its affiliate member, the European Travel Agents and Tour Operators Associations (ECTAA) delegates to Malaysia today.

ECTAA is the national associations of travel agents and tour operators of 27 European Union (EU) Member States, of 2 EU accession countries as well Switzerland and Norway, and 3 international members and is actively cooperating with the EU institutions and international organisations. ECTAA is the affiliate member of MATTA since 2017.

MATTA membership with ECTAA since 2017 is significant to the industry as it will allow promotion of domestic tourism to over 27 European countries, through over 70.000 travel agencies across Europe, targeting more than 700 million consumers in the European region.

As the international member of ECTAA, MATTA is coordinating the group of national travel agents and tour operators’ associations within the EU consisting of 46 delegates from over 25 associations for its annual general meeting held on 7 to 8 May 2018 in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia has been identified by ECTAA as the ‘Preferred Destination of the Year’ for the year 2018 in accordance to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between Tourism Malaysia and ECTAA on 9 March 2017 at Berlin, Germany aimed to boost tourist arrivals from European countries to Malaysia as an extension to the framework of cooperation between MATTA and ECTAA signed on 9 March 2016.

MATTA has been persistently engaging overseas travel agents to do packaging and to create awareness on local destinations. Such collaborations and commitments between Malaysia and European travel agents are necessary to promote Malaysia at a global scale to further progress and to boost tourist arrivals to Malaysia for the benefit of all.

The main European outbound markets to Malaysia include United Kingdom, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Norway and Belgium. Last year, visitors from these European countries is at 906,641 compared to 955,836 at 2016.

MATTA is optimistic the ECTAA visit to Malaysia will facilitate to re-generate the interest of European visitors and assist domestic tourism promotions more efficiently and effectively to the European countries with confidence to attract 36 million tourists and RM168 billion in tourist receipts by 2020 in line with the Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2020.

DATUK TAN KOK LIANG
President MATTA
Term 2017 - 2019